Steambirds – Mobile Game Review

Steambirds is a great turn-based aviation strategy game for Android and iPhone, based in the early to mid-twentieth century, placing it firmly in the Dieselpunk genre. Extremely addictive and a unique concept, it will kill all that loose time when you could be, you know, working and eating and stuff.

Story-line-wise, it’s really simple, a sort of olive-fatigues-and-khaki-combination of alternative history WW1 and 2 themes, where the discovery of the nuclear engine has provided super-charged steam as the basis of all modern propulsion and flight. As a team of elite aviators, you fight the Germans (well of course) and your job, chaps, is to prevent those dastardly fellows from dropping their bombs all over the place, the munitions-litterbugs that they are. What-ho, and all that.

Simple controls, easy to pick up.

You pilot various types of fantastic flying machines in a bird’s eye view of skies, dog-fighting with a series of increasingly formidable opponents including clouds of enemy fighters, massive dirigibles and swarms of bombers. Anticipate where the enemy craft are likely to be, plot out the flight paths, and then end the turn to watch your planes perform your cunningly planned maneuvers with elegance and style whilst watching them gun down the enemy – or, if you’re me, watch helplessly as they crash and burn (I told you, I’m not very good at games, be nice…).

My most common screen because YOU SHUT YOUR FACE

At first you’re just aiming and letting the planes do the work, which is gads of fun in itself, but after a while you can definitely start applying a little forethought and strategy, drawing your foe into traps and out-maneuvering them with a shifty series of aerial antics. You’ve also got a slew of special abilities at your disposal, such as missiles, toxic gasses and super charge boosts for your nifty engines. But keep an eye on your flyboys, squadron leader, as the enemy forces also have their own destructive gadgets up the sleeves of their flightsuits…

If you don’t mind paying a little for great games, it’s a steal at $0.99, and has good replay value. The associated developers are some of the more renowned in the indie game industry, responsible for such titles as Triple Town, Meatboy and others. They’ve also released a sequel to Steambirds, replacing the campaign feel for wave attacks, but it’s only out for the iPhone at the moment with other platforms in the works.

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[…] of the hydrogen airship era, Dr. Pembroke took a break from medicine to review the video game app Steambirds, we invited you to fill out Presenter Applications for the 2016 International Steampunk Symposium, […]